After finding itself with a viral hit last week, Saturday Night Live decided “Why wait?” and immediately brought back Melissa McCarthy to play White House press secretary Sean Spicer for this week’s cold open.

With surprise gone from the bit, McCarthy wasted no time commanding the stage, screaming at the assembled journalists to sit and saying (but really, screaming), “I’m calm now.” Of course, she wasn’t, almost cursing them out before controlling herself, since, “that was the old Spicey.”

In hearing about the impression, the real Spicer commented that McCarthy could maybe scale back the gum chewing, and the sketch’s writers took that to heart. McCarthy’s Spicer says he’s been “told to cut back on the gun chewing,” so he breaks out a yard-long piece of chewing gum – noting he’ll only eat one piece – that McCarthy fits almost completely into her mouth.

After stumbling over foreign names on the president’s schedule, “Spicey” takes questions from reporters, yelling that in response to judges shooting down the travel ban, the president will take the case to the People’s Court. A question about extreme vetting brings McCarthy back to her prop box from last week, as she uses “dollies” to explain to the “big dumb babies” in the press corps what “extreme vetting” really means. Pulling out a heavily-armed GI Joe type doll and a Barbie, she introduces them as a TSA agent and an American girl just back from vacation, saying, “We know she’s OK because she’s blond.”

“Now, who’s up next?” she asks, pulling out a doll of a dark-skinned girl. “Uh oh. It’s Moana.” We see the TSA doll give her a vigorous pat down as we’re told they’ll be asking her questions and reading her emails, and that if we don’t like the answers, it’s off to Guantanamo Bay for poor little Moana.

McCarthy then reads off the administration’s list of uncovered terror attacks, which now includes “The Horror at Six Flags,” “The Slaughter at Fraggle Rock,” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Including here is the “light terrorism” of Nordstrom’s declining to sell Ivanka Trump’s merchandise. McCarthy then has Spicer plug said merchandise, which she happens to be wearing, including pumps.

After conjecture during the week about possibly having Rosie O’Donnell play Steve Bannon, we instead get a different gender switch-up, as Kate McKinnon comes on as new attorney general Jeff Sessions, mentioning how there are “two types of crime, regular and black” before Spicey shuffles him off stage.

McCarthy also builds on the visual of the abusive podium from last week, attacking reporters with a leaf blower and a new, improved podium, which is now a vehicle, allowing her to drive it right into those pesky reporters. Cecily Strong’s face as McCarthy points the leaf blower straight at it is tailor-made for GIFs.

The biggest surprise there, of course, is the show not leading with Baldwin’s version of the president, since he was this week’s host. Instead, Baldwin left politics out of the monologue to talk instead about the favored topic of the show’s most veteran hosts, which is, invariably, the fact that they’re veteran hosts. Baldwin, the show’s all-time hosting champion with 17 appearances (Steve Martin and John Goodman are next, with 15 and 13, respectively), brought out Pete Davidson, the show’s 23-year-old cast member, who was still three-and-a-half years from being born when Baldwin hosted for the first time on April 21, 1990. (Quick aside – is Davidson the show’s first-ever heavily tattooed cast member? He hides it with long sleeves, but he’s got some serious ink working on both arms.)

Davidson tells Baldwin he wants to “learn from the best,” and as Baldwin shows pictures from his various hosting gigs, Davidson can’t believe how good-looking he was back then – like, seriously can’t believe it. “You were so hot! You should have been in movies! Were you, like, so mad when you stopped looking like that?”

Next comes a combination Valentine’s Day/Black History Month ad for a “romantic” box of wildly-inappropriate chocolates molded after famous figures from black history. Both Sasheer Zamata and Leslie Jones receive the chocolates from their white boyfriends for Valentine’s Day – thanks to a handy guide on the box, we know that Dr. Martin Luther King is “I Have a Cream,” and Rosa Parks gets “Maple Nut Butter” – and the look on their faces says it all. George Washington Carver predictably gets peanut butter, and the whole thing is five levels of wrong. The candy shaped like Dizzy Gillespie with the puffed out cheeks is on point, though. Overall, a funny take on some of the misguided things people and companies do to try to show solidarity. (Their tag line at the end – “Russell Stover – Are we doing this right?”)

Speaking of advertiser pandering, Strong and Alex Moffatt play Cheetos executives, hearing pitches from ad agencies for their next Super Bowl ad. Baldwin and Aidy Bryant pitch what was basically the 84 Lumber ad from last week, with a girl trying to come into America from Mexico and facing a wall, a shot followed by a hard cut to the Cheetos logo. The other team, Melissa Villasenor and Kyle Mooney, pitch simpler ads that actually involve the product. The execs love the far-reaching, globally relevant social justice ads, including making their Chester Cheetah mascot transgender, while shunning the ads featuring real-life experiences with the product. We get the point – just wish it had come with a few more laughs.

Next comes Beck Bennett as CNN’s Jake Tapper, and McKinnon as Kellyanne Conway. Last week, the real pair had a heated exchange on CNN as Tapper called Conway out for telling lies on his show. Here, the relationship between the two becomes a brutal yet seductive battle a la Fatal Attraction as, after refusing to allow her on his show, Tapper finds Conway waiting at his home in a silky negligee, nursing a drink. “I just wanna be part of the news, Jake,” she says, in her best come-hither/Glenn Close voice. “I’m not going to be ignored, Jake.” “You made up a massacre. We can’t have you on,” he says, retreating, as she purrs, coming closer, “But I miss the news.” Soon, Conway is rubbing up against him, licking his face, then pulling a knife. This goes on, growing simultaneously more sensual and psychotic as the pair are shown as toxically interdependent, McKinnon’s Conway portraying her need for media exposure as something close to bloodlust. In the end, Conway wins, first holding a knife to his throat, then surviving a free fall to the street, her limbs unmangling themselves by some evil magic.

Next, Baldwin plays an Army colonel inspecting troops including his son, played by Mikey Day. Despite being a gruff military man, he can’t help telling his son how good he looks in his uniform, fanning him when he’s doing his mandatory push-ups, and grilling his fellow soldiers on his progress. Short and sweet, a few quick laughs.

After the usual mixed bag of “Weekend Update” jokes – my favorite line from Michael Che this week, on his reaction to being asked about Ben Carson being put in charge of the projects: “There’s someone in charge of the projects?” – McKinnon comes to the desk as Elizabeth Warren, grilling Che and Colin Jost about how they’re credited and paid as full SNL cast members even though they “collect the same paycheck as a cast member who appears throughout the entire show.”

Alex Moffat then premiered a new character at the desk, the Guy who Just Bought a Boat, an embodiment of douchiness who brags with lots of abbrevs while admitting, “my penis is bad.” Leslie Jones, playing a rare nerdy character, and Day play a mild-mannered couple who, inspired by “50 Shades of Grey,” tried S&M and are here to tell the tale, although in the case of the bruised Day, barely. His advice – figure out if being waterboarded with your own urine turns you on before you indulge. In his case – no.

Given that Baldwin is host, we knew we had to see Donald Trump at some point, and here he is – following up what turned out to be a foreshadowing joke from McCarthy’s Spicer sketch, as a plaintiff in the People’s Court, suing the three judges from the Ninth Circuit who rejected his travel ban. Trump angers the TV judge (Strong) by bringing his own little gavel, and having shirtless Vladimir Putin (Bennett) serve as a character witness. The sketch serves to collect SNL’s grievances with Trump all together in one basket through Strong’s presiding judge, who calls his diatribe about bad people rushing into the country “refrigerator magnet poetry,” and declaring at the end, “You’re doing too much! I want one day without a CNN alert that scares the hell out of me,” one of the biggest applause lines of the night from the studio audience.

Surprise guest Tracy Morgan joins Kenan Thompson as Beyonce’s in utero twins, talking about how their mom is clearly someone special. Given how people react to her, says Morgan, “she’s either a beautiful queen or a goblin.”

Next comes a short film on Leslie Jones’ effort to play Donald Trump on the show, an idea that caught traction online after McCarthy’s Spicer appearance last week (and one that I suggested back in November, for what it’s worth). In a sense, the show has its cake and eats it too, ending with Lorne Michaels flat-out rejecting Jones’ request to play Trump – and her Trump voice sounds more Jamaican than New Yorker – but not before we see her in full-on Trump mode, complete with blonde wig and eyebrows. At the end, dejected, she hits the street, where Melania Trump passes by in a limo, and brings her along, believing Jones to be her husband.

This week’s 12:50 sketch deserves its slot, if any, as Day plays a student in gym class doing sit-ups, and farting with each one. That’s the whole thing.

The show takes a break for a few weeks before returning on March 4 with host Octavia Spencer (musical guest TBA).

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. His greatest wish is to see Stefon enjoy a cheeseburger at John Belushi’s diner. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.